Los Gatos Wildcats roll to another victory
By Dick Sparrer
The strategy for Palo Alto was to play ball control football when they played host to Los Gatos last Friday afternoon.
And a quick check of the game stats would indicate the Vikings did just that when they battled the Wildcats in the first game of the season in the De Anza Division of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League.
After all, Los Gatos ran just 15 plays in the first plays in the first half while the Vikings ran 19 plays in the first quarter alone.
So the Cats didn't get to spend much time with the football in the afternoon game. But that had more to do with the Los Gatos offense than with anything Palo Alto was doing.
It seems that everytime the Wildcats got the ball, they scored.
"I was worried about them coming out and trying to play ball control," said Los Gatos coach Butch Cattolico after his club's convincing 41-0 victory in the league opener.
And that's just what the Vikes hoped to do. They ran eight plays to open the game before punting the ball out of bounds at the LG nine. Five plays later the Cats were in the endzone, and that turned out to be the story of the day.
Junior quarterback Trent Edwards, who had another big day as he hooked up on eight of 11 passes for 179 yards and two touchdowns, hit Derek Smith for 10 yards and Joey Warren for 20. Smith ran twice for 21 yards, then Warren broke free for 40 yards and a touchdown.
Anthony Frangadakis kicked the first of six extra points, and the Cats were on their way to another rout.
The next time the Wildcats touched the ball it took them all of five more plays to score again. Smith ran twice for 34 yards and, after an errant pass, Brian Edwards ran for 16 more. Smith then scored on a 25-yard run to make it 14-0.
Smith finished the day with 13 carries for 129 yards as the Cats rushed for 251 yards behind the solid blocking tackles John Allen, Casey Sargent and Nick Crafford, guards Adam Toeniskoetter and Nick McAlpine, centers Dan Holtzman and Matt Benedetti and fullback Jason Rosa.
The Cats had the ball less in the second period than they did in the first, but they still scored twice.
B. Edwards ran back a punt 81 yards for a score, and T. Edwards tossed to Warren for 50 yards and a touchdown.
It was more of the same in the second half. Gatos went to the ground to open the half with Smith carrying seven times for 43 yards and Warren running twice for 18. Smith smashed over from the two for the TD.
Mike Vyhnal was the defensive star with 17 tackles and John Glage was in on 10 stops. Markus Willard supported with nine tackles.
"He's been outstanding for us defensively at strong safety," said Cattolico of Willard.
Tony Berry and Ken Heimer were in on seven tackles apiece for the Cats and Scott Soucy, Jon Espe and Matt Newell were each in on six.
The Cats will put their 4-0 record on the line this week when they host Mountain View on Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m., at Helm Field.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
